At a Feather's Touch
by Raventhedarkgoddess
Summary: Robin knows that the past isn't always worth running from, but when the leader ends up falling in a battle, will he find any way out of it? And what about Raven, who then cares for him? Will they grow closer as time unfolds itself on both their lives? Cha
1. A Night To Remember

_Raventhedarkgoddess: Okay, I get the point, I never, ever seem to finish what I start, but I'm starting another story anyway. Enjoy or not, please leave a review, I also like to know what I'm doing wrong. Unless, of course, it's about my coupling. (cough( StarandRobin4eva (cough) I'm seriously tired of couple flamers. Any other comments welcome._

_**Disclaimer: **I don't own Teen Titans, sadly._

**At a Feather's Touch**

**Chapter One: Looking Back**

"Man, I can't believe it. One whole year... You sure you're cool with remembering everything that happened?" The cyborg wiped a hand over his dark skin, smiling with some tension in his face. "You seem really stressed and everything, and I know some of your memories... Aren't all that great," he finished lamely, stretching his arms above his head in what he tried to make out to seem to be a lazy gesture. Robin, or at least he preferred the name of Robin, looked over at him quietly. "There is a lot to remember."

He merely nodded his agreement, able to feel both old and new identity within him at the mention of his old identity: Now he was Dick Grayson, then he was Robin, but neither seemed to fit the black-haired boy who did not fit in regardless of where he was, even in a team full of people with mysterious and painful pasts such as his own. "Yes," he agreed softly, authority clouding his voice, past and present mixing together, "There certainly is a lot to remember."

Suddenly, speaking of their own memories, everything in the room changed slightly, from the television in front of them to the stains on the couch around them, each thing coming back to them from a separate incident, and even Starfire's laugh, Beast Boy's joking, and even Raven's silence seemed to feed almost comfortably into the mix, leading both the laughter and sadness that was buried in their hearts back into the light. Robin let out a half-sigh: What had he gotten himself into?

Cyborg held up a large metal hand. "Ready to go, man?" He looked at Robin with concern, maybe the concern of a brother, or maybe the concern of a friend, but also with the concern of someone who knew what Robin was going through as far as not quite wanting to have to meet up with the ghosts and demonic shadows that were his very past, the shadows he tried to avoid.

_Will I ever really be ready? _A resonating pointless question that came back to him in the hollows of his own mind, which he was trying to force to work with his heart to keep from feeling anything at all. Instead, he brought the green rubber that covered his rough fingers down to meet with Cyborg's large metal ones. "Ready as I'm ever gonna get."

Both slid down the couch without looking at each other anymore, ready to begin talking, ready to begin talking about the pain in the Titan's pasts. The blue couch felt worn between them, almost a part of certain memories in itself. "I am ready to begin the telling of the memories!" Starfire chortled happily, obviously just having finished laughing at something the green changling beside her had said, although it was highly likely that she didn't understand it.

"Can we just get this over with?" Asked the cold, skeptical voice of Raven Roth. "It's great that we've survived this year and everything, and that no one's been killed or anything, but some of us do have important things to be doing." Her legs were already crossed as if already she longed to be safe in the dark sanctuary of her room, relaxing and meditating, shutting out the world around her.

Robin watched her violet eyes dance briefly and then fade into nothing emotional, brushing her purple hair away from her thin face until she noticed him looking at her and returned a politely quizzical look which plainly said, 'What are you staring at?' He merely shrugged his shoulders, a gesture which made Cyborg give him a slight look, but neither said anything more.

"Sure, if that's what you want," Cyborg replied with a brief shrug of his shoulders, not catching the extra tension between Robin and Raven, not noticing that they seemed to be locked in some kind of staring match over his head. "Who wants to go first?"

"Dude, I will, I have so many stories to embarrass Raven, I just cant' wait until..." His voice broke off as a hand print appeared in the side of his face, Raven glowering at him. "Sorry, I'll shut up now..." He became quiet, folding his arms over his chest and bouncing up and down slightly.

"I remember a time when friend Raven and I switched bodies and I came to understand her and..." Starfire began monolouging. Robin sighed and settled back and instead studied Raven's way of sitting, her eyes glowing with fake interest as she listened, her long legs tucked under her. She caught him looking, forced him to turn away, and he blushed.

_What the hell are you blushing for? _He questioned himself, but nothing answered, and he felt hopelessly alone.

Just then, however, a red light went off, accompanied by a loud, obnoxious buzzing: Robin cursed silently, unable to believe that something would be important enough to disturb the Teen Titans on their one night of break in the entire year. All the same, though, the distraction from his thoughts was more than welcome.

"What?" He barked shortly at the video screen, blinking to wipe away the vision he had of the enchantress in his head, her legs tucked under her, fake interest in her life in her eyes...

"Downtown... Superpowered villains... Your area... Get down here..." The chief of police disappeared almost instantly as blasts behind him engulfed both him and his team, the loud explosions and civilian screams disappearing behind him. Robin sighed. "Titans, you heard him! GO!"

* * *

On his motorcycle, cruising down the road with the T-car behind him, Robin gazed out over the blurred landscape, deep in thought. Raven had told him what she had been able to find based on the images: The villains were known as Past, Present, and Future, and all seemed to have some tie to Slade. "Ironic," she had said, "How we're looking at our pasts and these people just show up, don't you think?" 

_Past... _For some reason, the words, the irony of it all bothered him. He resolved then and there that they had to be taken down.

He had no idea that parts of his own past were about to leave their heavy steel cage in the back of his mind, becoming painful reality,to join him in the present where he was working so hard to escape them.


	2. Present

_Raventhedarkgoddess: This chapter may be a bit hard to follow because of all the villan diolauge with their names ((Or so my beta reader said I should write... She's a pain in the ass sometimes))... Sorry in advance. But, without further babbling, thank you for all the kind reviews and I hope you like the next chapter just as much._

**Chapter Two: Present**

The ground seemed to stop aburptly where the Titans stood. In reality, a giant crater had been blown in the road, making it impossible for any type of road trasportation. Cyborg let out a loud curse as Raven unclicked both their seatbeats with her mind and, in spite of the half-man's protests, managed to get him out the door and focused on the crime scene.

"Where are you, villans?" Robin noticed several cops behind their vehicale, firing at what he could not see, and so he made several steps in that general direction. "Come out and show yourselves!"

"How precious," said a low voice, female and laced with an edge that proclaimed itself dangerous without actually having to come into sight. "He thinks we're just common criminals to be caught by the police's back-up team of underlings!" The laughter that expelled from her lips was cruel and cold, and it was at that moment that the retreating sun moved slightly lower, permitting him to see her and her comanions.

Almost at once, as if they had been bred from his own feelings on the past, present, and future, three women appered, and he could almost feel which one was which. The first was Past: Silent and wearing a heavy cloak around her slim frame, her black hair falling in waves and her eyes peircing him.

Present was obviously the speaker. Her body was covered in a blue outfit, and she had a cold smirk on her face, almost mocking him while her brown hair fell around her face. She stared at him just as coldly as the girl next to her in a fashion that made him wonder if this sick villanry team wasn't in fact a group of sisters.

The third girl, he knew at once must be Future. She looked pained and indecisive, and her outfit was a careful mix of black and white, her hair long and blank, almost as if it had no color to it at all. Robin felta sense of forbidding, but his voice came to him none the less through the feelings of misgivings he was having about attacking the strange girls.

"Titans, GO!"

At once the bodies moved into position, painfully powerful starbolts whizzing past his left ear and what was perhaps a peice of the shattered hole of concrete moved past his face with stunning speed as an animal, perhaps an elephant, moved past him to attack their formation. At the same moment, the threesome broke their formation and began to move, away from the attacks.

"They're quick, man," Cyborg observed loudly as Robin made a move in on them, toward where Beast Boy was already struggling, now a small humming bird, to avoid their attacks and almost failing miserably. Robin just gave him a nod: Wasn't that obvious enough as it was?

"Beast Boy, look out!" Beast Boy looked up, but he was not in time to avoid a punch from the nearest girl, Present, and fell back on his now-human face, laying very still on the ground. For some reason, perhaps just annoyence and rage at watching his friends get knocked around, he lunged forward and tried to kick her.

Instead of a face, however, he managed to hit only air.

"Heh," she smirked in a completely unreadable voice, "Did you ever really think you could hit me?" He felt a hand press itself up against his neck and began to try to get away, but he failed, held there by her hand and some force he couldn't explain. He could almost feel her distain and anger at being near him, as if somehow she felt him to be an annoyence, an obsticale.

"Let... Me... GO!" He hollored, and struggled harder, but, for some reason that was out of his grasp, he could no longer breathe. His knees buckled from the strictness of the pressure, but he forced himself to stay upright.

"Do not harm Robin!" Came a loud voice, and Starfire attempted to hit the girl but missed by several inches for her fear of hitting Robin. "Put him down this very second!" Her frantic yelling, however, did nothing but initate laughter, and she fell, motionless, as the girl Robin had assumed was Past knocked her out of the way as if she were nothing.

"Slade didn't tell us the Teen Titans were so... pathetic," said the one called Past in a low voice, watching Robin try to breathe. "Had I known, I would have looked forward to the epxerienc of meeting them much less."

"Yes," the one called Future called, from where she was engaded in a rampent battle with both Raven and Cyborg. "Almost upsetting how easily we have made them fall to their knees."

"Could you not forsee their defeat at our hands, though?" Asked the one who held Robin and then let him slump to the ground. He looked dead on the pavement, and the three villans turned to face Cyborg and Raven, who stood all alone, backed into the corner of a narrow alleyway. "You two are next,"Present added, venom on her voice.

"Not on my watch," Raven hissed, and Cyborg moved over to where his fallen comrades lay, trying to bring them over to Raven, who was fending very well on her own, all things considered. Slinging Robin and Beast Boy over his shoulders and holding Starfire's form in his arms, he ran forward to the Azarathen.

"Retreat!" Future yelled. "Do not let them retreat!"

But all that they could see was the disappering of large black wings, the wings ofa bird that would carry the Titans home and throw them down on the rocks in front of their home.

"We're defeated," Raven whispered, trying to keep herself standing upright and help Cyborg bring their three injured friends inside. "Defeated here and now."

_Defeated in the present. Defeated by Time._


	3. Scars of the Past

_Raventhedarkgoddess: Thanks once again to my reviewers. You guys are great. Anyway, I don't actually have much to say except that this story may actually fall by the wayside for a bit come the fall, and for that I'm sorry. I do enjoy writing it, but I'm getting wrapped up in marching band and won't have much time. Expect at least one more update this summer, though. Now, since I've wasted enough of your time babbling, here's the next chapter of At a Feather's Touch. Enjoy, if possible._

**Chapter Three: Remember the Old Scars**

Raven sighed openly as she looked down at the eagle-spread alien girl, her white, pale skin covered in blood and bruises, her face turned to one side and the tips of her hair reddening with a sick form of blood. She could see the bruises and the rubbing where Starfire had hit the wall, and then the ground, almost cracking her hip against the pavement. Raven could see it to be only a hairline fracture, though, and breathed another sigh, this one of releif. She placed one long, slender gray hand to the skin and willed the blue power to her fingertips.

Almost imediatly she longed to recoil, to pull away from the blood, but did not. She could feel herself weakening, weakening... She shut her eyes and pressed on. This was no time to give up, not after they had come so far just to get back here, to make it away from the girls who called themselves Past, Present, and Future. Names of time, of the passage of things both tangible and intangible.

_What do they know about time? What do they know about pain and suffering, about lost time and time gained? What do they know about fearing the day when their life will go up in flames forever and they'll die, unable to protect even the ones they love?_

_And how were they able to defeat people who do?_

Cyborg sat outside the screen he had errected for the privacy of the girls, although he had barely had the strenght left, sloutched down in his seat on the couch, eye closed, the mechanical eye staring ahead at the room around him anyway, a reminder to him that he was still his mechanical self. Even his mechanical being had been stretched to it's limits, all just to survive. Beast Boy sat next to him, his arm in a sling and a few bandages around his head. Neither spoke, and neither would have had anything to say even if they had. The words hung around them though, ugly words full of hate and spite, anger and rage.

The words: We are defeated. **The Teen Titans are defeated.**

"Friend Raven?" A voice suddenly said, thin and stretched. "You are uninjured?" The emerald eyes sparkled with concern as she looked up toward Raven. She pulled her shirt back down from where it lay around her shoulders and placed her arms through both armholes, sitting herself upright to face Raven, looking over at her from her spot on the table.

Raven decided not to tell her about the large gash on her chest that slowly bled with each thud of her heart: She would deal with that later, when she was alone and able to properly deal with the sight of her own blood. She was terrified that Starfire would force her to visit a doctor, someone who might discover the long scars down her back and the even deeper scars within her mind, the injuries of her past... "I'm fine." She searched her friend on more time for major, life-threatening cuts on both the surface and under it, wrapping her right arm in a white peice of cloth and then lightly tapping her on the shoulder, having problems standing up.

"Please take care of him." The emerald eyes were averted from the figure Raven picked up with her mind, bringing over to her side and laying him on the table in place of Starfire. Black hair caked with a nasty look of both blood and mud, he lay there, unmoving, probably even perfectly unfeeling. Raven lay him out flat: Had his form not been so mangled, he would have looked as though he merely slept instead of having been knocked into a state of literal concinous loss.

Raven could only nod. It was hard enough to stand there bleeding, the strenght almost gone from her form, but to smile and tell her friend everything would be okay would have been too much altogether. Starfire moved around to join the boys on the couch, looking down at the few wounds on her body: Was it really fair that Robin had taken so many of the blows himself when they sat there almost completely unharmed?

Raven looked him over once and felt her legs almost give out at the knees: She hardely knew what to consider focusing her energy on healing. Many large, sinister paths of blood seemed to mock her, confusing her. It all looked so much worse than it probably was, but the real problem was that the boy was not awake.

_If only I knew how to make him wake up... _She lay her hands in the middle of the mess, almost throwing up as she looked down at him, but she was strangely determined, unwilling to give up on him without a fight. She could feel herself slumping forward, falling forward...

The blood caked under her nails seemed to be one of the only traces left, save his broken left arm and his still unconcious state. She lifted him gently with her mind, pushing him up so that he levetated just above her head, and brought him along with her, folding the screen with her free right hand and tossing it toward the wall. The three remaining Titans followed the gothic girl and the leader to the steps.

Raven sighed as she came to Robin's door, forcing herself to make the door to his room slide open as she moved in, laying him across her bed. Exastion overtook her as she forced herself to sit upright on the corner of his bed, telling herself she only wanted to montior changes in his condition to see what needed to be done for the boy.

She almost felt a jolt of affection in her gesture as she reached out and smoothed his bloody hair away from his still-masked eyes, noting, for some reason, the perfection of his shoulders, the way his mask made him look heroic and warm...

"Rae?" Cyborg's voice cut through her as she quickly sat back, pretending to be murmering to herself about the low state of his pulse. "You look really beat-up. Want me to take over Rob's bedside for you, since I kinda don't really need to rest and you do?" It was a friendly gesture, but there was something imporling in his voice, as if he knew that her body needed the rest in order for her to even be able to move again.

"I'll be fine. I need to be around in case he wakes up. Everything wrong with him is serious, and he needs immidate help when he wakes up." Although she had intended for that to bea clever lie, it was actually very close to the truth: Robin would probably die if she couldn't find some way to help him.

And that was a truth that stabbed her heart worse than any scar of time from her past.

"Okay, then. Night, Rae, and thanks." The half-man, half-robot slowly made his way out of the room and down the hall, quietly shutting the door behind him as he went. His feet padded away down the hall, and Raven once again looked over at Robin. His face was relaxed, but at the same time it was torrmented, as if his sleep was troubled by something.

"Wish I could help you." And with those words, she collapsed across his chest, laying against him, her head resting just under his. Normally, she would have tried to move, but the sleep was already moving in on her, and she quickly made a move to lay her hands over her wound, to heal it. That was when it all went black, blood over her hands, laying across Robin, feeling nothing.

That was the last thing she remembered, his face. It gradually began to blend into her dreams, and then the blackness covered even her dreams. She became nothing, unconcious laying there. Her scars were under wraps for now, but her mind was reeling in pain and misery of scars and broken dreams, her power all but lost.

The rain came down loudly as it had in the past. The Titans were defeated, but some things would never change.

_Raventhedarkgoddess: Well, that was rather short, but I hope you enjoyed it. I hope to get back to you with a new chapter soon, I really do enjoy writing it. Thanks to all the nice reviewers who keep me going. (hands you virtual cookies)_


	4. Feel Nothing

_Raventhedarkgoddess: I may get a few more chapters in than expected. (hears groaning from reviewers) I know, I know you thought you were rid of me. Anyway, thanks for all the reviews, they inspire me to update quicker. _

**Chapter Four: Nothing**

_The Boy Wonder extended his hand to her, green-gloved and calm, unlike her hands, which seemed to shake with every move she attempted to make. She jerked away as he moved forward, as if somehow he repusled her by being both in front of her and near her emotionally. "Raven, what's wrong?" He flashed her a smile, and she felt her heart softening to him. Inwardly, she groaned: This was exactly what she was afraid of. _

_She couldn't tell where they were. They were obviously somewhere dark, but it was more the fact that they were alone that bothered her, that troubled her between her wildest dreams. Raven shivered: There was something wrong with this situation, but she couldn't peg it._

_"You can tell me anything, you know." He reached out his hand for her to take again, no offense showing in his face if he had taken any to her first rejection. Raven stretched her hand forward this time and took it in her own, holding it. Their fingers interlocked in a perfect fashion and she left her hand in his, enjoying feeling safe and secure despire the darkness around them. She tried not to break her eyes away from his as they stood there, his eyes, although hidden, warm and soft against hers._

_Raven felt her mouth open, ready to spill the words that burdened her heart, but the acidic taste of her painful secrets rose in her mouth and she shut it, her secrets refusing to come out. She shook her head and mentally slapped herself: Now was no time to get attached to Robin. She couldn't get attached to Robin. She moved to free her hands, and she almost pulled away from him until their hands barely touched anymore._

_"Raven..." Robin looked at her with sorrow for a moment, and then his hand released hers. He began to fall away, falling away from her into the surrounding black void, hand still outstretched to her as if in a silent plea for her to come and help him, to save him from his current state of misery and pain for wanting a little bit of trust. "Catch me! Fly!"_

_Instead, Raven turned her back, feeling an invisible breeze softly play with both her cloak and her hair as she turned away from where Robin had fallen. Voice choked with emotion, she heard herself whisper one word. "Robin..."_

_A single tear welled up in the corner of her violet eyes and spilled over, the crystal tear falling down the same path Robin had taken, falling away from her._

_Falling into nothing, just like anything she ever got up the courage to feel.

* * *

_

Raven's head jerked upright, her breathe coming in quick, harsh gasps that caused pain in her chest, her whole upper body. A mask, presumably one of Slade's, clattered from the dark walls and landed on the floor somewhere in a corner as she struggled to grip her fear and close her heart against feeling anything further.

Quickly she straightened up, her face blushing with a failedattempt at surpressing her embaressment. She looked around, the room, sensing upon waking up confused that this was not her own room. Instead, her eyes caught the small R next to her head and she realized that she lay against Robin's chest. _It was an accident, just an accident..._

_So why did I enjoy laying there like that? _The question repeated itself, forcing it's way into the back of her mind and refused to leave her alone.

She sighed to notice that, aside from his shallow breathing, Robin made no sound, nor did he appear to have moved at all. Raven ran her free hands over the cuts she had done a poor job of mending the night before. _Please be alright..._

She reached up his left hand to smooth back his jet-black hair from his forehead, only to find another gash, long and deep, in the middle of his forehead. Upon her soft contact, the blood began to come forward, and the gothic sat up with a start. As she moved to heal it, reducing it to a narrow cut in just seconds, she did her best to convince herself that the cut had been her main interest from the start, not him. Relucently, she withdrew her hands, trying to ignore the blood on her hands as best she could.

Suddenly, she remembered her friends, who were most likely downstairs waiting for her to come down stairs, to give them some news of what was going on in the small room above their heads. Raven stood slowly, moving away from the edge of the bed where she had sat, with some reluctaince.

"Get well," she whispered in a voice heavy with emotion. Slowly she straightened her cloak and moved away, back to the door, and stood in the frame, one hand braced on either side. The door slammed a bit harder than she'd intended for it to with pent-up emotion as the black aura slammed the door. Raven moved down the hall, feet in perfect sync with no one: She half-expected Robin to walk up behind her, and they would sit up and talk or prepare breakfast.

Only one shadow, however, made it's way down the steps and covered the room's occupents where they sat on their couch. All three teens seemed to note the shadow, Starfire turning upon it covering her and the other two making only a stop long enough to pause the video game they were furiously fighting over. Five eyes (and one robotic one) bore into her.

Raven chose to ignore their obviously eager expressions. When she spoke, her voice held only it's cold, calm monotone, and none of the surpressed emotions from Robin's room came through at all. "Is anyone still in any real pain from their injuries?" She asked, in a tone that any but her friends would have assumed meant she really didn't care about them.

"Well, my head hurts and my arm is still cut a little bit, and my back is killi..." Beast Boy began, but was cut off by a sharp jab and a glare from the cybernetick teenager at his side as a warning that Raven did not mean those kinds of injuries. The two exchanged a brief look, and then it was gone.

"We're fine," Cyborg answered for him. Raven merely nodded at the response, and a light silence fell over the room that was, for once, not broken by video games or yelling, music or the clacking of a keyboard as their leader worked.

It was nothing compared to the painful silence brought on by Starfire's next question. "Friend Raven..." She faltered there, if only for a second. "Friend Raven, I cannot help but notice the blood on both of your hands..." Raven sighed: She had been hoping to keep the blood hidden. "I must know... How is Robin?" Although her voice was weak, the question had about the same heart-stopping effect as if it had been screamed. Raven could feel her pleading for a good answer, but she merely averted the begging emerald eyes and kicked at an invisible spot of dirt on the carpet to avoid looking at anyone as she spoke.

Raven took a breath, trying to keep her Sadness in it's proper hollow in her mind long enough to answer them. "He's... He's still out cold. He doesn't respond to words or touch, and his breathing... Is shallow." She tried not to choke over the last few words.

Starfire turned her head wordlessly, her water-filled eyes away from Raven as she walked to the window. Eachhand gripped the upper of the oppisite arm as if she wanted to protect herself from the cold reality of the words, hovering toward the large bay window and pressing her amber-colored hair-covered forehead to the cold glass.

"Look, Starfire..." Raven moved after the other girl, who had pulled herself up onto the window ledge, and tucked her long blue cloak around her legs as she sat down next to her. She gently lay her left hand against the other girl's shoulder. "I'm sorry." Getting no response but a loud, dramatic sigh, she decided to continue talking. "I know how you feel, and I know this has to be hard for you, but..."

Starfire sprang up from the window ledge, and both of her hands dug inpulsivly into her palms as she shook Raven away, as if afraid that she might bite at any second, almost as if Raven repulsed her in a way she couldn't quite understand. "You obviously do not understand how I feel! You failed to make Robin well! And you cannot understand how I feel because you do not have the Earthen 'feelings' for Robin! You do not even have feelings at all to say those words to me now!"

Starfire did not wait for a reaction. Hands swinging at her sides, face averted and tears sliding down to her shoulders, Starfire left the room. Instead of waiting for a reaction, Raven turned too, and then flew out the large window in front of them, into the air made stagment with the humidity from the departed rainstorm of the night before.

Beast Boy and Cyborg merely shrugged at one another: Who could understand women? They unpaused the game, but neither of them were quite in the game, their minds elsewhere.

Cyborg sighed: When had everything become so messed up, and yet it still meant nothing?

* * *

Raven sat on the roof of the Tower, her cloak floating below her and her legs crossed, her eyes open and meditation impossible. **_"You feel nothing at all!" _**Raven tried to keep the words from repeating in her head, but it failed and she could hear the words repeating over and over again. Slowly, she lowered herself to the roof and moved toward the edge of the roof, legs dangling over the edge as she felt a slight breeze ruffle her hair.

**"You have not the Earthen 'feelings' for Robin!" "You failed to make Robin well!" **The sun climbed in the sky, red, red like blood and pain and misery. Red like a heart, a heart that felt so much it could never express.

Red like the blood on her hands, the blood that was there from trying and failing to help. "I tried..." She whispered, and rested her hands in a nearby puddle, washing away all evidence that she had ever tried to help. "I tried."

**_"No feelings for Robin!" _**Starfire's voice said aloud in her head. **_"You have no feelings!" _**

"Like hell I have no feeling for him." She sighed and openly bask in the blood-red glow, one hand, a tiny clot of blood still in the corner of her hand. "I don't."

_I can't feel anything at all anyway._

_I'm not supposed to have feelings.

* * *

_

Raventhedarkgoddess: Okay, chapter four. R+R.


	5. Word Knifes

**Chapter Five: Word Knifes**

The sunset had long since faded to blackness in the sky by the time Raven Roth decided to make herself known of the realm of the living beneith the roof she had sat upon for what felt like immessurable time. Her hood over her face, hiding the emotional after-effects of the few tears that had slipped from behind her eyes, she silently slipped into the heavy front door of the place she could call home.

A heavy, metalic hand on her left shoulder caused her to let out a small, slightly startled gasp. "Rae, you want something to eat?" The voice attached to the hand asked quietly, and Raven let out a slight sigh of relif to realize it was only Cyborg. "You don't have to take the hood off," he added, and Raven realized that she had made a subconcious gesture out of fingering the fabric of the hood's wide brim around her face. "Just come with me."

Raven followed his lead in moving toward the kitchen, trying to act as if this were any ordinary day and nothing had happened, that nothing was different. He sat a plate of reheated food (presumably food of his own cooking) in front of her and then, keeping his head turned slightly to look at her, turned to the sink of dishes that towered before him, making no noise as she ate.

"Really good, Cy," she complimented, her own cooking skills being almost non-existent, trying to break the silence that was broken only by the bubbles that came from the sink as they ran into the ceiling and the lights, the lapsing of the water the only other sound in the room.

"Thanks, Rae," he said loosely watching the bubbles assult the light with his back to Raven so that she would not guess that he was studying her, making sure she was alright and trying to figure out exactly what was bothering her. She lifted a forkful of rice to her lips and ate, and slowly she brought the hood down from her face.

The tear tracks on the sides, the slightly red apperence of the veins, told him that Starfire's earlier comments had stung her far more than she'd been letting on. "Listen, Rae, about Starfire..." He stumbled, watching her as she set the fork down against the plate and turned her attention to him.

"What about her, Cyborg?" She asked, watching him pretend to fumble with the last dishes and letting the water out of the sink, watching him pretend to be disgusted by the tofu on the remaining plate. When he didn't answer, she let out a sigh and raised her fork: No one had words to say about the truth anyway, not when it came out like the truth had come from Starfire.

_You act as if you feel nothing at all!_

"She didn't mean that stuff," he said, no longer pretending to be having problems scraping the tofu from the plate in his hands. "She was just upset, and she's so close to Robin that she just kinda blew up... She likes you, Rae, and I know Star would never say anything like that on purpose."

Raven finished the last bite of chicken, trying her hardest to swallow it without gagging, feeling her throat closing over it with her emotion. "...That may be true, but she was right..." Raven sighed softly. "I spent too much time feeling sorry for myself today instead of helping him, and he may die, and it's my fault I didn't do anything for him..." She sighed again. "I just got too wrapped up in my own emotions."

"You needed a break. It's not your fault." He paused, waiting for her to say something, but she mutely got up and discared her plate into the sink. "Robin wouldn't want you to think so much about him anyway."

Cyborg's words hit her harder than he could ever have understood as having more than one meaning, but she tried her best to look grateful and accept them as the words of a friend who didn't quite realize what he had said. _Of course he wouldn't want **me **thinking about him so much, _a bitter voice in her head pointed out. _He has other, more suited people to care about him than me. _

"Thanks, Cy," she managed to say vaugly, trying to avoid showing any emotion and fighting to keep her voice from straining or breaking over those two words as she started the faucet to clean her plate, her hands resting against the worn pattern of the plate.

Cyborg removed the plate from her hands. "You just go take care of Rob," he said quietly. "I'll stay down here and get this place cleaned up." Raven gave him a grateful nod, then slipped out of the room, both feet hitting the carpet outside of the room, the light resting against her back and then fading into almost nothing, the comfort of being with a friend forgotten as she began to move away from the kitchen.

_"Robin wouldn't want you to think so much about him anyway." _For some reason, the words stayed in her mind as she continued her way through the tower toward the Boy Wonder's room.

For no reason, the sight of her own reflection caused her to stop and glance at it. The backdrop for the reflection was moonlight, and her skin hardly showed up at all, so that her violet eyes appeared to rise out of the black-lit drop of the sky, full of sorrow and an inexpressable form of pain. Her purple hair fell around them in a mysterious way, and the small gem set into her forehead glowed in the faint light, glowing red.

She looked at the reflection for only a moment, but then blinked hard and swallowed. _You're only going up there to heal him, and then you're going to leave him alone. You're nothing but a teammate to him. _And with that, the emotion, the sorrow that had plauged her face was gone, and it became an emotionless mask.

One that she turned away from. She couldn't stand looking at herself without emotion, not now, not ever again. "Is it fair to feel so much when you can't express it...?"

Her feetbegan to move, cloak flying around them as she left the dim hallway, moving away from her reflection as if somehow wishing she could leave that part of her existence behind. The door flew open with pent-up energy as she reached it, and slammed again as her tired body discarded itself, spent, on the bed. She looked around for something, anything, to distract her from crying, but found nothing.

And so she stood up and walked quickly over to his desk, sitting down away from him to avoid disturbing him, and that was when the tips of her fingers felt something hard and cold laying down on the desk. The picture frame was old, but the tattered print inside of it was older.

_His parents? _She questioned to herself, eyes no longer full of pained tears as she looked over at him. _There's a likeness there..._

A loud cough resonated through the room, making Raven jump up, her surprise sending something else clanking down, the noise masking the the noise that dropping the picture frame had made. "Raven... What happened?"

"You were injured during our fight with Past, Present, and Future." She ran over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder as he tried to sit up. "Don't. You'll hurt yourself further."

"How long have I been like this?" He asked in disgust, running a hand through his hair, over his face, still wishing he could just sit up. Instead, however, he tried his hardest not to stare up at Raven, who handed him his mask and tried not to gawk as his beautiful electric blue eyes. _Look away until he's got it on..._

"Only a day. You're going to have to rest a few more days before we make any attempts to move back into battle, though." Hearing him finish struggling with his mask and fall back, Raven turned to him and sighed: The damage to his body had been something even she wasn't going to be able to remove unless he was willing to rest.

"What happened to everyone else?" He asked, his face tight with worry for the answer. "And are you alright? You must have been so busy tending everyone else... Did you treat youself?"

"Everyone, myself included, is fine." She lay her hand on his forehead. "You, on the other hand, are burning with fever and still cut in a few spots. Repairing it all would have been a bad idea. Please, Robin, you've got to just stay in bed. If you don't, you're never going to make it through a battle, and then we won't be able to attack for weeks." Relucently, she removed it, her hand burning. "You're burning up, Robin."

"Fine, I'll stay here." He sighed.

"I'm going to go get Starfire," Raven told him, her face suddenly remasking itself. "She's been wanting to see you since you were knocked out the other day." Without giving him a chance to respond, she left the small room, leaving Robin alone.

_But what if I only really want to talk to you? _He questioned in his mind as the gothic left, the door shutting with a loud thud behind her as if she were irritated.

* * *

Raven hesitated outside Starfire's door upon hearing the soft noises of someone rolling around restlessly in bed: What if the already-angry alien girl was asleep? Softly, so as not to disturb her if she truly was asleep, Raven rapped her fist three times against the bedroom door, then brought the hand back under her cloak and waited. 

Starfire sighed: If this was another attempt to cheer her up by Beast Boy or Cyborg over her fight with Raven, she knew she wouldn't be able to put up with it much longer. "I am coming," she called, getting up off her bed where she'd been making a futile attempt at napping and moving toward the door.

Raven swallowed, hoping that her voice would not fail her and that she would find the words to say. "Starfire..." She began as the door opened, and the other girl's face hardened instently.

"What do you want?" Starfire asked her coldly, with more venom to her voice than Raven had ever heard directed at anyone.

"Listen, Starfire, it's Robin... He's awake, and I know how much you want to see him..." That was when Raven's body hit the doorframe, her headsmacking against the hard metal as a small blur, presumably Starfire, went tearing past her down the hall in excitment.

Gradually regaining her breath, Raven made a move to follow her, feeling more and more hollow and alone with each move she made toward the room where Starfire and Robin were now located.

_You're always alone, _she made a point of reminding herself. _Always.

* * *

_

By the time she walked into the room, Robin seemed to be depleted of the ability to breath, so tight was Starfire's embrace around him. He looked over at Raven for a little help, and she came a bit further into the room, out of the shadows,causing Starfire to let go of Robin at the sight of her.

"I have missed you so much, friend Robin!" She gushed. "This is not a home without you, and we have all been most worried about you!" Her eyes said it all, though, the emerald in them gleaming: _Me most of all._

Robin tried to keep his focus on what she was saying, but he found his eyes slipping from side to side: First to the alien girl on his bed, then over to the gothic in his doorway, her arms hugged around her body, her eyes cold as if she had been forsaken too many times to show him any emotion at all now. Part of him wished that Raven would come over and talk to him, but she was quiet as ever, waiting for the pair of them to be done speaking.

"Starfire," he said finally, right in the middle of a sentance, "I'm feeling pretty weak. Could you leave so that I could... You know, sleep?" He tried to look tired and worn, when really he just wanted some time to be by himself and figure out why, when Starfire had been sitting on his bed and Raven had been away from him, he had wanted her closer to him.

"Of course, friend Robin!" Starfire said, rising, and kissed him on the cheek. At that moment, for no real obvious reason, he wished she wouldn't have. "Pleasent dreams."

Suddenly, she stopped next to Raven. "Friend Raven, our fight earlier was my fault, and the things I said..." Robin stopped listening: Whatever had happened between the girls was their business. However, as they spoke, he got a good look at them both in the light and was stunned at how different they were in reality.

Starfire hugged Raven once and then left the room, leaving him alone to stare at the gothic, who looked up uncomfortably as she felt his eyes in her back. "Since you need to sleep, I'm going to go look for something in my books that could help you."

"Um, Raven, wait..."

"What?" She asked, hugging her cloak around her body and doing her best to hold the feeling of neglect and rejection in until she could get into her room and meditate safely.

"Just... thanks." He groaned inwardly. _Why are you so afraid to ask her to just stay here with you?_

_Because she'll reject you. _A scared voice in the back of his mind pointed out, and he could not force it away. "And night, I guess," he added when she failed to acknolwedge him and coldly shut the door behind her.

"Why do I always mess up!" He fumed. Head spinning slightly, he lay back against his pillow with a long, loud sigh. "Why!"

* * *

Raven simply lay across her bed, her face turned to the ceiling, face twisted downward in a hopeless frown. "I should have said something to him."

_But I can't._

_Because I'm not supposed to feel anything._

With a loud, fustrated sigh, she threw the small mirror containing her emotions at the wall. It fell, as unscarthed as always, and landed on the floor without a sound. Crossing her arms over her legs, shutting her eyes, she moved into the proper position to meditate.

Trying to find peace that refused to come to her while she was haunted by all the words everyone had said that day. If words were knifes, she would have been cut and bleeding. _Robin... _She thought.

The worst of all things she could have thought. A name.

**_Raventhedarkgoddess: Longer chapter, at least in my opinion, hope you've all enjoyed the senselessness of the angst. I'm moving a bit faster than I expected to on this one, but I hope you enjoy it none the less. Reviews appricated._**


	6. To Fight the Strong

**Chapter Six: To Fight the Strong**

Robin lay there on his bed, his face luminatied by the glow of his alarm clock glowing, the demonic red numbers glowing onto not only him but his bed-spread and walls, leaving everything with a satanic feeling. Slowly, trying to avoid further harming himself, he sat up, leaning against the headboard for support in order to look at the numbers on the clock face.

_Six o' clock? _He found himself thinking, partually with slight shock that he had taken another daytime nap and partually with a mixed sense of disappointment and anticipation- Raven would be coming up soon with dinner and to eat with him, but the rest of the team, mostly Starfire, usually accompanied her.

_At least I get to see her, _he tried to tell himself, looking toward the bright side of things and failing to actually do so.

It was at that moment that the door flew open and rammed itself into the damaged wall where Starfire had been throwing it the past few days before running into the room and throwing her arms around Robin into a crushing hug that had redone of the the healed damange to his wounds, often making Raven sigh in fustration.

Today, however, violet hair falling into her amthyst eyes and carrying a silver tray about five inches off her pale palms, inglufed in a black cloud, Raven entered the small bedroom alone. The blue cloak swished around her, her face drawn and tired from the recent care, mostly that she'd been giving to Robin that last week. "Doesn't it hurt you to sit up like that?" She asked.

Robin paused for a few hesitent seconds, trying to figure out exactly what she meant. "No, not really," he said slowly, sounding rather stupid, suddenlly realizing that he was in fact sitting up in his bed without pain for the first time since the accident. "It doesn't hurt anymore."

"You still have to drink this," she muttered, pulling the small vial from her cloak and placing it into the piping hot mug of tea she had brought for him. Robin winced- He hated the pain-killer, but it had helped him, and so he took the mug and prepared to swig it. In the meantime, Raven began setting out silverware and waiting for Robin to finish in silence.

"...Aren't you going to ask me where Starfire is?" Raven asked after a few moments, slight surprise in her voice. Robin simply shrugged his shoulders and tried not to spit out the drink in his mouth at the time- He was afraid to make a fool out of himself in front of Raven again, because he often staggered in front of her and made himself seem like more of an idiot than ever.

"No," Robin stated simply. "It's not really important to me." The words, having just slipped out of his mouth, were sudden, shocking even him into a quick silence. Raven, clearly embarressed, simply picked up a fork and began to eat, trying to ignore the words that were now bouncing around inside her head. "Sorry, I didn't mean..."

Instead of responding, she simply handed him a fork, and he began to eat with his head down to the plate. He found his appitite much increased, which was surely a good sign. Every time he looked up, he ended up locking eyes with the gothic girl, who had a slight smile on her face at some times, but she would quickly look away to gaze at something else in theroomevery time their eyes met.

"You're getting strong," she observed finally, which, for no reason, made Robin blush. "I know you can't stand being cooped up in here anymore..." She paused as if hesitating on what to say next. "If you'd like to go out for some light training tonight with me, you're welcome to it. You need to start working again if we're going to catch Past, Present, and Future. After all, a team is only as good as it's leader, and we've got a pretty good one."

This made Robin smile and blush, looking down at his still-covered feet. "I'd love to." He ran his fork over the last of the scraps on his plate and devored them, then lay it on top of Raven's plate, accidentally brushing her hands again, which sent a blush over her face that she tried to hide. "When can we start?"

"As soon as you can get up and ready." She smiled at him quietly. "I'll let you get dressed while I'm gone." Slowly, she got up from the small chair next to his table and prepared to leave the room.

"Raven?" He said quietly, his voice rather inquisitive, as if there was something he had to ask her. _Don't blow it this time, _he snapped at himself, annoyed.

"Yes?" She asked, holding onto the plates in between her hands, losing control over her powers suddenly and being forced to catch them in mid-fall as the startled look crossed her face. "Did you need something, or do you want to back out?"

"No... I just... wanted to thank you for everything you've done for me." _At least it's a start, _he thought, realizing that once again he had blown it. "You've helped me in more than one way."

"You're welcome." With that, the door shut, and Raven quickly ran down the steps. For some reason, though, the words made her heart feel lighter, and she was in the mood to see him again. "You've helped me too," she added, beginning to run the water in the sink to do the stack of dirty dishes.

Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Starfire all stopped in the middle of their activities. They almost could have sworn they heard whistling from the kitchen. "That's Rae?" Asked a very confused Cyborg.

"She seems most happy," Starfire pointed out from her comfortable position, laying upside-down with her body draping toward the floor as if it were perfectly normal for her to sit that way.

"Well, it's better than if she were in here yelling," Beast Boy muttered, his head still on the race. And that was when he hit the 'Unpause' option, leaving Cyborg to curse and swear in his dust on the racing game they were playing, the clicking of their controlers rising above the mysterious, happy whistling.

* * *

"You're going to have to swing up higher," Raven instructed, moving out of his way easily as the bo-staff missed her left shoulder by only inches. "You're never going to hit one of them flying if you can't even hit me." 

Pretending to groan at Raven's tough lesson, Robin swung at Raven, this time striking her in the shoulder. The hit was far harder than he'd intended, however, and the shoulder of her cloak ripped. The blood that began to pour forward shocked Robin, and he quickly, without thinking, took Raven's hand and began to babble apoligizes.

"I've caused you so much trouble, and now this... Raven, I am so sorry... I didn't mean to..." The words refused to come out cohearantly, however, and resulted in Robin looking like an idiot once more in front of the young girl. "I've been so much trouble... Will you be okay? Here, let me see that."

Relucent to have any contact with him, Raven lay her own hand over the wound before letting him see the now fully-restored spot on her skin. "That was much better. Nothing to be sorry for." He tried not to leave his hands on her, however, and quickly let go of her hand in his embaressment.

Raven did her best not to smile before raising her hands again. "Hit me with everything you've got!" She smiled at him, the attempt not to smile failing, and Robin also smiled before lunging back into training.

Both were bruised before the end of the night, but Raven and Robin both felt it was worth it.

* * *

The days passed slowly, and Robin was retaining himself after his injuries. He had adopted a new personal moto: "To fight the strong, take all you love and use it to become the strong."

It wasn't until the alarm went off that day that Robin realized it would never be enough. "Titans, GO!" Their leader shouted, enhralled to be back in command of his life.

He didn't realize that rushing into danger meant nothing, strong or weak- It was going to hurt the team, and him, in ways he could never imagine. Past, Present, and Future were waiting.

And as of now, they had the untainted record.

**_Raventhedarkgoddess: Shorter chapter than last, sorry. Hope you enjoy anyway. New chapter soon, or at least I hope- Read and review. Love writing this story- Thanks for all your support._**


	7. The Battle for Everything

**Chapter Seven: A Battle for Everything**

Robin listened to the alarm going off, knowing what it was going to be long before he actually made his way down into the living room. "What's going on?" He asked anyway, trying to get confirmation of his suspicions as he skidded into the room and grabbed Raven's arm to keep himself from falling onto his face.

"Past, Present and Future have finally shown their face in public with Slade. The attack is going on at a local shopping center about twenty miles from here. I think they may just be trying to call us out... This seems too small for one of Slade's plans, man." Cyborg was clicking his fingers off the keyboard, struggling to get more information as he blew up the pictures on the screen for Robin to see- There was no mistaking the three girls, or Slade, even from the distant, fuzzy pictures of the police report they had been sent.

"Well, then what are we waiting for! Let's go!" Robin, feeling much better than he had in weeks and wanting to prove to Raven that he had learned something from their training sessions and all their time together.

"Hello? Dude? Even **I** heard Cyborg say it was probably a trap!" Beast Boy pointed out, waving his arms around in an almost comical manner. "I mean, these girls could be space monkeys or something!"

Raven rolled her eyes. "While I do think we should use caution, I highly doubt there are any space monkeys involved..." She paused. "Robin, what do you think we should do?"

"We have to go after them!" Robin said, finally letting go of Raven's arm, his resolution to try to show her his actual feelings for her, to spend less time with Starfire and try to be kinder to her, disappering. It was forgotten in the heat of the moment, in the heat of the chance to catch the villans responsable for his injuries almost two weeks before.

"Perhaps we should take the time to think this through?" Starfire asked slowly, trying to keep from offending Robin. "Perhaps we should consider the possiblity of a trap..."

Robin wasn't listening. Instead, he was looking at the blurry photographs- And into the faces that had mocked him for so long in the feverish nightmares he had had while he had lay under Raven's care. "Even if it is a trap, we're stronger now than last time. We can take them."

"So you're saying you want to attack?" Cyborg asked Robin in an undertone, trying to keep anything that might have made it sound like an insult to their leader out of his voice and facial expression.

"Of course I want to attack! Didn't you just hear me say we can take them?" Robin asked, his voice and temper rising through his throat as he spoke. Cyborg sighed- So much for not angering their overly-sensitve leader, who now had a fist clentched at his side.

"Then I guess we should take a few minutes to plan this out..." Raven said, not trying to sound overly-critical, but wanting to let Robin know that rushing into this mission in the same fashion as last time was another practically suicide. "We need to have a form to counter-act their consistent flight."

Robin fought down the urge to blush- Raven had mangaged, once again, to make him feel like a fool. _I always mess up, I just want to please her and I mess up... _"Good idea," he forced himself to say, trying to keep his voice from wobbling or letting out a sign of his embaressment.

Several minutes were spent in deep discussion over the tactics that would be used, but Robin wasn't really listening to his team. Starfire and Beast Boy didn't appear to be much help to Cyborg and Raven- Starfire was suggesting unreasonable tactics and Beast Boy still insisted that the girls were monkeys from outerspace. Robin could hear the irritation in Raven's voice, but instead of stepping in to help her, he was staring at her face.

"Is something wrong?" Raven suddenly asked him, catching his intent gaze, which was falling on her face. "We were asking you about what you think of this." She pushed a complex looking piece of paper toward him, but suddenly, even in the heat of the moment, of the chase and the catch he would normally live for, the x's and o's reminded him more of a football team's playing drills than anything he could actually use.

"I think it looks fine, but are you sure we can pull this off?" Robin asked, trying to pretend he was absorbing the whole of the plan instead of trying to get another look at Raven.

"Friend Robin, why are you unconfident that we will be victorious?" Starfire asked Robin.

"That's not what I meant. I just wanted to make sure... To make sure we're ready. We have to take down Slade and the Time girls."

"You're calling them the Time girls now?" Beast Boy asked in random confusion.

"Better than calling them the space monkeys," Raven replyed in a lofty voice, taking the plans back from Robin as they looked at the new scenes of destruction Cyborg was pulling up- The foursome was moving quickly, and the damage being done to the city was extensive.

"Titans, GO!" Robin called out. _Time to prove that I'm not just another guy, _he thought to himself, and then sprinted out the door, leaving his team to follow him, wondering if their leader truely had been hit too hard in the head in his accident.

* * *

The team made their way to the sight of the small red dots moving across their communicators, following the villans as they made their way downtown in a whirlwind of destruction. Strattling the R-cycle, Robin couldn't help but have feelings of misgiving and doubt- What if his friends had been right and this was just a trap meant to call them out and expose them, expose him, as failures? 

However, there was no time to hesitate once they reached the site of the battle, for there, in a perfect formation, were the three girls, floating above a man Robin reconized at once as all his hatred boiled up inside him. "Slade! I knew you were behind this!"

The girl known as Present tossed her brown mane and laughed at him. "So the little birdie who's wings we clipped is back for more? That's sweet, Robin, very much so, but you really can't defeat us and I don't understand why you bother trying."

"Those with a troubled past will do anything to prove their worth in the future, sister," the girl known as Past pointed out, pulling her hood further into her eyes as she watched the Titans.

Robin could feel his temper mounting. "You don't know anything about my past! Your assumtions aren't going to get you anywhere!"

"I forsee a defeat," Future whispered. "You are far too worked up to fight correctly, and you will be the downfall of a team member in your current state."

"You're a bunch of fakes!" Beast Boy called. "They don't really know all that stuff, Robin! It's all a bunch of fakes, unless they really have powers from..." Beast Boy's statement was cut off when Starfire slammed a hand over his mouth to keep him from saying anything that might further worsen the situation.

"Well, Titans, I suppose you'll just have to see for yourselves the power of my new help... Attack and destory the Titans." With a lazy flick of his wrist, Slade sent the girls forward, in a formation that the Titans had not seen last time, to attack them. Robin could feel the team moving into postion behind him, but the words of the girl known as Future troubled him- Would someone really be hurt because of him?

He wasn't given much time to think about it, however, because Past glided over to him with a look of pure menance on her face. "You do intead have a troubled past- You try to atone for it with good deeds, the same as the truth of the girl you love most, but..."

Robin tried to throw a punch at her, but she blocked it swiftly with her left hand and continued talking. "You cannot deny that you do love Ms. Roth more than anything..." She caught a second punch and evaded a kick, dropping him back to the ground in a heap. "I really wish you wouldn't try to hit me while I'm talking to you."

Robin gritted his teeth against the pain. "What do you know about it, anyway? How can you possibly know anything about me when all you are is a girl from somewhere who's shown up and tried to make a name for herself as one of Slade's goonies?"

"You fail to understand the power of time, Robin. One would assume one such as yourself would understand it's passage... The Past will haunt, the Present will be a time of Trail, and the Future will keep us all from fully understanding the light and mystery of love and death." Past hovered over him, keeping him down, and he could feel the pain bottling up inside him, could feel his anger coming back to the surface.

"Shut up," he managed to force out. "Just shut up right now, and..."

His words were drowned out by the sound of Raven hitting the pavement less than ten yards away from where he lay. He looked over in time to see the deep battle cuts on her body but tried to ignore them, tried to think only of getting up and rushing to her aid. The girl knocking her around was Future.

"I told you you would not rise," Future whispered. "It is written out that you will not make it past this battle. Your past was one you were not meant to live through, but it matters not now. Even fate can be wrong..."

That was when Robin stood, pushing Past aside as he moved toward Raven. "You're not going to hurt her!" He looked around for someone that could help them, but Starfire, Beast Boy, and Starfire were all engadged in a fight a long distance down the street with Present, who appeared to have no trouble at all dodging their attacks or keeping them back, laughing all the while she won.

As he knocked Raven to one side, however, an attack unexpectedly came out of nowhere, an attack Robin should have been able to see coming, were he not so blinded by a quick anger to save Raven. Slade jumped, bo-staff out, and caught Raven in the chest, narrowly missing Robin's shoulder.

Robin tried to think of something to say as he lunged at Slade, but nothing came out but a cry of rage. Starfire, amazingly enough, had made it under the line of Present's attacks to Raven's side- The deep wound seemed to have already begun to bleed rapidly.

Slade laughed and moved out of the way. "So, the rage in you will lose you the thing you love the most. I like it, Robin. You're shaping up to be a person I never could have forseen." He surveyed the scene with a smirk- They had obviously defeated the Titans yet again. "Let's go."

With that, the three girls resumed a formation and left the area with Slade, laughing in a way that Robin was already begining to hate. He raced to Raven's side and watched as the other two found him. He crouched over her form as Starfire began to check the wounds. "It is deep..."

Onlookers were frightened of the look on Robin's face as he lifted the body in his arms. He was prepared to run, but Cyborg held him back. "Just put her in my car, man. We can handle this better at home."

"She saved me, and now you're just going to take her home to die!" Robin yelled. "You heard them! Past, Present, and Future don't lie, and fate is going to cost me the one I love the most to my anger!"

Starfire just looked at him in slight pity, unable to believe that Robin was standing here calling Raven the thing he loved the most. _I am his girlfriend..._

Raven's body was placed across the back seat of Cyborg's car as the aurgement came to an end and the Titans made their way toward their home at lightening speed, leaving Beast Boy and Starfire struggling to keep up with the vehicales.

The battle for everything had been lost, and the score weighed on Robin's mind heavily: The Time Sisters, two, The Teen Titans, zero. _All that really matters now, though, is saving Raven._

_I won't lose anything else to time._

**_Raventhedarkgoddess: Nice little angsty chapter, although pretty bad. Feel free to R+R, band season has started, though, so try not to expect new chapters TOO reguarly anymore._**


	8. Falling

**Chapter Eight: Falling**

Robin ignored the sound of his fellow Titans at the door, telling him to be strong and come away from Raven's room for his own sake. However, part of him was willing to refuse anything for the cause he was fighting for now, even the sound of Starfire's crying and Cyborg's brotherly reason. He ignored Beast Boy's words of cool, collected humor even in the face of something like this and continued to tear through the book he was holding from the chair where he had sat, overlooking Raven, for what felt like forever.

Her chest was still moving up and down in a peaceful sleep, but other than that there was no movement from her, save on the second day of his vigual when she had looked over at him and opened her eyes. "Robin... Please, stay here..." But her voice had faded, and since then she had not made another move.

Slowly he reached over and took her hand, detaching the small jeweled clips at the end of her wrists and sliding the sleeve up to check her pulse. He couldn't help but noticing how fragile the blue veins in the back of her hand were as he pressed two of his gloved fingers into her wrists- Her heart rate was still amazingly slow and calm despite everything, and Robin wished that just once, she would look at him.

"Please, friend Robin, you must at least come out to recive food!" Starfire was yelling hysterically, beating her fists against the door with a force that might have come through any other, save that which was to Raven's room, but even Cyborg failed to knock it in this time.

"You can't help her if you don't come out here and take care of yourself, man. If nothing else, someone else can stay with Raven while you eat and sleep, even if it's only for a few hours. You've gotta stop beating yourself up." Cyborg's voice held the same edge of reason it had held every time Robin had heard them come to the door, but tonight it didn't irritate him- It penetrated his thoughts of refusal.

Although he tried to hesitate, Robin knew they were right. Everything in his chest was on fire and his eyelids were heavy- There was no way he could continue to stand at Raven's side when he himself was about to collapse and become his teams problem.

He looked one last time over at the teenage girl, who lay there on the bed looking quite helpless and fragile, as if in sleep she had become a whole another person, one who required protection and saving. "Hold on for me," he whispered, looking down at her sleeping face, and an emotion he would never be able to describe burned through him. Slowly, bending down so that his black hair fell into his face, he rested his lips there for a few seconds, kissing her. Without another word or look, lips now burning much like his heart, he headed toward the door and began to undo the many locks upon it.

His teammates were all staring at him anxiously, as if they expected him to be dead or a zombie- Starfire ran forth to grab him in a hug that, while crushing, he barely felt. He was Robin, yes, but his senses were dead, lying instead with the kiss he had just given Raven and buried under his determination to restore her to her usual self. "Can we eat now? It's okay if you don't sit with Raven, Cy."

Cyborg gave Robin a vauge smile, trying to make him feel better, and gave him a rather brotherly clap on the shoulder. "Come on, man, let's go get something to eat and then you can rest a little bit." Using his hand to guide Robin, they made their way to the steps, followed by a worn-looking Beast Boy and a very dejected, confused Starfire, who hung her head and stared after him.

"Robin..." She whispered and then leaned against Beast Boy in her fustration, who sighed and gave her a little hug before leading her down the steps, half-wishing that it wasn't just out of friendship she had leaned on him.

Robin ate without really seeing what he was eating, shoving fork-full after fork-full into his mouth without chewing, so that several times Cyborg was forced to move the plate away from him and refuse to let him eat anything more until he did so. "Come on, Cy," Robin said angerly, after being forced to swallow.

"You need to slow down, man. Next you'll be sick, and then we'll have a real mess on our hands. Besides, you still need to take a nap, so I don't understand what you're rushing for." He slid the plate back toward Robin and allowed him to resume the crazed-man way of eating with a sigh. _I wish he'd slow down._

Robin finished the last three bites and prepared to go upstairs, but found Beast Boy blocking his way. "Starfire's up there with her now, dude," Beast Boy said forcefully. "You need to go lay down, take a nap or something, and then you can go back up and take care of Raven, all right?"

"You don't understand how important this is, Beast Boy!" Even though Robin knew Beast Boy's words to be truth, he was still angry at his friends. _They're treating me like some stupid little kid..._

"Trust me, Robin, I know how it is to want to help someone you're close to, but you've gotta take it easy." He folded his arms stubbornly. "Now go lay down on the couch or something."

Seeing that he wasn't going to get his own way, Robin made his way to the corner of the couch and assumed a position he had rarely slept in- He brought his legs close to his chest so that he was in almost a ball, and layed there, determined to do just that for a few hours. _I'll just lay here, and then I'll go straight back upstairs..._

_I hate this. _For some reason, the thought came out of nowhere, and it was true. He hated his current situation, hated being helpless and hated being forced to just lay there while Raven suffered upstairs. "Raven..."

No sooner had the word left his lips, however, than his eyes became heavy and he began to drift off to sleep. His dreams were strange, full of screaming that he could never fully understand and words that echoed in his head like secrets. And in each, Past, Present, and Future were taking Raven away from him, killing her...

He awoke with a start on the couch, clutching his hand over his heart with a sigh as he looked around the living room. Starfire and Beast Boy were quietly talking about something while Cyborg worked on something on a nearby computer, scowling. "...Does not appear to like me anymore. I believe he and friend Raven are more than friends, and I fear that I am replaced."

"Even if that does happen, Starfire, it wouldn't be the end of the world. If Robin and Raven get together, I'm sure there's someone else for you..." Beast Boy had just taken her hand, and for some reason Robin felt his ears burn- If she was going to break up with him, couldn't she just tell it to his face rather than sneaking around with Beast Boy?

Robin sat up and let out a loud cough to make his presense known. "Friend Robin, I am sorry that you had to overhear us, but I..." Starfire tossed her amber hair as if debating on what to say next, but no words would come to her lips, and the next few moments were uncomfortably silent.

Robin wanted no further explaination. Instead, he turned on his metal-studded heel and made his way toward the steps. This time, no one bothered to stop him- Raven was his main concern right now, and no one could have stood in the way of that. Not Cyborg, not Beast Boy...

_And not Beast Boy and Starfire. _The thought did not bother him, simply shocked him. _I just can't believe she'd get over us so easily and go on like it never happened... But it doesn't matter right now._

He made his way over the threshold of her room and made his way straight to her bedside, tears running down his cheeks for reasons even he didn't understand. The books felt heavy in his hands and he discared them one by one with a quick scan through each, the meanings jumbled, but none of them what he needed to bring Raven back to himself. Every time he looked up at her, though, he would turn back to the bookshelves willing to try again, despite the fact that they were closer to empty than ever.

_There's got to be a way... Raven has got to live... There's got to be a way for us to..._

A groan startled him and he wheeled around to face the bed. Although Raven's eyes were not open, it was clearly her. "Robin... Save me... I love you... Robin, please... I'm falling, catch me... Robin..." Her voice trailed off and Robin ran to her side, checking her pulse with one hand and wiping the sweat from some unknown nightmare from her forehead, although her breathing was still normal.

Robin reached for her hand, wishing he could phycially hold her. "Raven, I'm sorry. I messed up- Really messed up. I'll save you... Raven, I really do love you... I'm sorry..." He kept his hand on hers,wishing she'd speak, refusing to let go of everything they had shared.

That was when the alarm went off. Cursing whatever forces might have the nerve to call him away from her, he held onto her a second longer and quickly kissed her forehead. "I'll be back, Raven. I'll be back for you."

* * *

Once downstairs, Robin was quickly informed of their situation. "Past, Present, and Future again, man." Cyborg was looking over yet another police report, his face grim, concentration written there. "We can go after them or let them slide, but this is another trap." 

"What do you think, Robin?" Beast Boy asked, trying to act as friendly and normal toward him as possible.

_Raven... They hurt Raven. I have to set things right, even if it means putting us in danger... Even if it means fighting with one less team member..._

_We have to do this._

"One last battle, Titans. And this one's for Raven."

**_Raventhedarkgoddess: Sorry this is so short, but it was a random idea that therefore ended up in my notebook. It'll be updated sometime, I promise. R+R, please._**


	9. Guardian Angel

**Chapter Nine: Guardian Angel**

"He just won't be talked out of it," Cyborg complained to Beast Boy, who had taken Raven's place shotgun in Cyborg's car at Cyborg's request. "Ever since Raven healed him, he's been completely different about her... It's almost weird, don't you think?"

Beast Boy gripped the dashboard in front of him to keep from slipping sideways as Cyborg braked hard, causing a loud squeal as they rounded the corner, chasing after the small R-cycle, upon which Robin drove like a mad-man. As soon as they were flying down the side street, Beast Boy sat up slightly. "Different? He's gone crazy for her! He's going to get us all killed if he can't wake her up!"

The statement, although true enough, did not earn a reply from Cyborg as he rounded another bend, still following the ever-crazy Robin. Suddenly, he slammed on his brakes, trying to avoid a head-on-head colision with the R-cycle, which had somehow spun around the entire way before the black-haired boy jumped off it and landed before the four assembled villans- Past, Present, Future, and the real reason Robin was here, Slade.

"You're going down!" Robin hollored, staring straight at the villans with a fire on his face that could not be easily erased. "You're going to pay for everything you've ever done to our team, do you hear me!"

"Well, hello Robin," Slade said, with a fake air of pleasentness in his mocking voice. "After your defeat last time, I really didn't expect to see you come back so soon to take another hit, namely not after the little bird girl's accident... Speaking of which, where is the little girl?" The smirk was not just on his face- It was in his voice too, and Robin, although he tried to avoid it, was getting more and more worked up by the second.

"Why don't you just shut your mouth, Slade!" Robin hollored, anger coming quickly unto the surface and refusing to go back to it's hiding place, face contorting with the anger even as he tried to avoid it.

"The child is deeply injured by the loss of the girl," Past observed, although her voice did not cotain the same mocking note as Slade's did. "This is solid proof that what you take from your Past will affect your Future."

Future, however, did not speak with mocking confidence, but a loose and misty air. "Future dares not to speak on the outcome of this battle, but instead leave it to the fate of the Present."

Present gave her sister a rather long, confused look, but then turned her head resolutely away and looked over at Slade. "Will you give us the challenge of a new dawning and another attack, Master Slade?" Her eyes looked rather bleak, but she promised herself she would not be further affected by Future's words, that she would take a chance on this battle. _It may be the way back to freedom..._

Slade pretended to be contemplating the battle, but everyone could tell what he was thinking. "Yes," he said, carefully and deliberatly, so as to mock the Titans further. "And while you're at it, please finish them."

"As you wish, Master. Come, my sisters, let us finish this battle once and for all." Present rose, and Past and Future rose with her, so that all three rose above the Titans, ready for an attack.

"Titans, go after them!" Robin yelled, dodging Past as she zipped along next to him- His interest was only in Slade. Bo-staff drawn, eyes narrowed, Robin let out a cry of rage and attempted to strike Slade, who seemed to welcome the challenge with a small knock of his own staff against it. "You're going down, Slade!"

As the two began to spar in the usual fashion, a hopeless whirl of legs and arms, punches and kicks and wacks with the staff, the other Titans were each taken out by one member, singled out and driven away from their usual stratagy of teamwork by the Time sisters.

"I'm sorry to say that the battle will soon be done for you," Present said to Starfire. Instead of responding, Starfire rose to the air and attempted to throw a starbolt at Present, who dodged it.

Present reeled for a moment as a second bolt caught her in the middle of a smart remark, then stood up and resumed the fight. The pair of them danced around in circles (although neither touched the ground with their feet) and sparks flew. Although Starfire was much slower than Present, she had more accuracy, and one last starbolt sent the other girl to the ground.

"So this is what my sister meant... Are we truely doomed to a life of powers and servitude? I thought we would get out of it, I thought we would make it..." But even as she tried to rise, Starfire knocked her back again.

"I will not let you escape after what you have done to friend Raven!" Starfire yelled.

"I see the lie now... A fool I was..." This time, Present made no move to rise, and Starfire thrust one last starbolt, which did what it needed to do: Both Present's eyes closed, and the girl fell into unconcious silence. Ignoring and stepping over the other figure lying on the ground, Starfire made her way toward the grunts and groans she heard. "Friend Beast Boy..."

By the time Starfire reached Beast Boy, he was in more trouble than usual, a small mouse trying to ignore the large wooden crates that Past hurled at him with all due speed, missing his small green tail by inches. "You have been defeated in the past. Past will decide the future. Why do you not just give up and let me defeat you?"

Instead of answering, Beast Boy made a swift transformation into a large green elephant. He rammed into her with amazing force- Past fell back in spite of herself, vainly trying to regain her balence. "I'm not going to let you hurt anyone else!"

"Why atone for the past now when you've already lost so many people?" She rose to grapple with Beast Boy again, and the battle seemed to be sliding- The blood going down his leg would not permit for him to stand forever, and so he made the most of one of the few shots he had left- He looked almost certain to fall.

"I suggest you give up now!" Starfire yelled, stepping out of the shadows and thrusting a starbolt at Past, who responded with an angry grunt. However, the two teammates easily outmatched her.

"Why do you not give up?" Starfire asked, bending over her. "Perhaps there is some way for us to help you and your sisters to..." Starfire did not get to finish the sentance, and heremerald eyes lit up with shock as a silvery blade punched into her exposed stomach, breaking the skin.

Beast Boy was unsure of what happened, but when he came to he was running, Past laying in a pool of her own blood behind him, her eyes closed in submission to the beating, Starfire in his arms. "I have to get help..." With that, he ran off in the direction of a loud blasting noise- Destruction or not, he needed the help.

* * *

Beast Boy arrived at the battle scene just in time to see Future pummeling toward the ground, tired and dead-looking. Cyborg stepped over her, running toward the crimson-stained Beast Boy, who was clutching Starfire in both his arms as though he might not ever let go. "What happened?" Cyborg asked finally, shock wearing off. 

"It's a stab wound..." Beast Boy managed to get out, but his voice broke there and Cyborg reached out to take Starfire from him. Beast Boy burst out into tears, still clutching the girl, and moved back from Cyuborg's outstretched hands. "Cyborg, please don't tell me... you can't help her?"

"Friend Beast Boy..." Starfire gripped his hand in her own and, although it was a weak grip, Beast Boy felt his face, tears still stuck to it, split into a wide grin, and his arms wrapped more tightly around her. Cyborg smiled to hear her voice. "I am fine."

"Beast Boy, come on, let me see that cut," Cyborg said, and relucently Starfire moved out of his arms and toward Cyborg, although she stood away from him, emerald eyes still facing Beast Boy.

The cut wasn't as bad as it had seemed for the blood it had spilled- It was less than three inches deep, and Cyborg stood up with relif. "You'll be fine, Starfire, as soon as we can get that patched up."

"I was so afraid you wouldn't..." Beast Boy bit back on his lip to keep from blubbering anymore, from crying over an injury that was not affecting Starfire. Instead of staring at him blankly, however, she brought her arms gently around him and they stood for a few moments like that.

Cyborg was the one to break the silence, looking at a nearby roof with a look of shock and horror. A battle involving two figures had managed to move up onto the roof- And Slade seemed to be pushing Robin back. "We've got to get moving!"

And so, with Starfire holding onto Beast Boy's hand, they ran toward the battle, unsure of what they might find if they didn't reach them quickly enough.

* * *

"Give it up, Robin," Slade said to the battered boy, who's breath came in short puffs and blood dripped from his destroyed uniform, the battered material moving around in the wind. "It's a known fact you're going to be defeated, so why do you prolonge your suffering? It really is fortinate I found those foolish sisters. Shallow, easy to manipulate, and they've played well into my plans." Slade gave a faint chuckle. 

"You're always manipulating people, Slade!" Robin let out a gasp and tried to strike Slade with the bo-staff, but he missed by several inches, and Slade laughed at the weakened attempt as he pushed Robin back, toward the roof's edge.

"So what, Robin? So what? If people want to fall for trickery, let them fall for trickery. After all, decit is something even you've practiced."

Robin swung again, but this time could not bring the staff back to himself- Slade caught it with a smirk, and held it there, looking at Robin with pure menance in his eyes.

"Are you quite done now? I honestly expected a little more fight out of you, given Raven's condition and your shattered team, but you're as weak and pathetic as ever." Robin felt the anger rising within him but did not speak up, did not fight back or strike out. "After all, I know you're done for... Oh, and goodbye. Victory really does feel sweet in my hands, in case you were wondering."

Starfire watched Robin's metal boot sliding back, back toward the edge, and screamed as they saw him begining to fall. The green gloved hands caught on the edge, but his fingers left it and he was sliding down, down... He closed his eyes against the fall.

_It wasn't supposed to end like this... I can't die, I just can't... Raven, I never told Raven how I felt... _"Raven..."

He waited for the concrete to rush up and meet him, but it never happened. Instead, he heard a second person breathing hard, felt arms around him. "Robin..." The voice was cracked from lack of use, but there was no mistaking it. "Robin, are you okay?"

"Raven!" Robin opened his eyes and faced her. "I'm okay... Raven, you're here... How did you... Why would you... Are you sure it's okay for you to be here? I mean, you're hurt, and... How did you...?" _Great, I'm babbling like an idiot when she comes to help me._

"Everyone needs a little help sometimes," she replied. Although Robin couldn't quite understand the reply, he was grateful none the less-Grateful for her, the saftey of her arms, and the rescue- and whispered choked thanks, which she blew off with simple replies, usually 'don't worry about it.'

_She's like a guardian angel... _

Even as they arrived on the roof amid the chaos of Slade departing, the Time sisters along with him, Raven collapsing as her wounds began to bleed again, Robin felt numb, taking her in his arms. "It'll be okay, Raven," he whispered to her unconcious form as he set her down in the back seat of Cyborg's car, kissing her lips.

_I have a guardian angel._

**Raventhedarkgoddess: R+R, flames ignored.**


	10. Released

_Raventhedarkgoddess: Um... Enjoy? (Been being a bando, sorry for lack of update)_

**Chapter Ten: Released**

The next two days passed agonizingly slow. Raven did not awake again, and her coughing and turning in her heavy slumber could often be heard. "Do you think she's all right?" Robin heard Beast Boy asking Cyborg one day as the half-metal teen shut the door and edged out into the hallway.

"She's fine. Too much blood loss and effort. I think she'll be up soon, but she won't be able to help us do anything for at least another week," Cyborg replied, wiping the sweat off his brow. "She'll just have to accept that."

"You know she won't accept... Robin, hi," Beast Boy said with forced cheer. "We were just talking about Raven and how she'll be good to go soon."

Robin merely gave him a look that said he had heard everything, and Beast Boy shut his mouth, quickly becoming very quiet. "Cyborg, tell me the truth... Will Raven ever fully recover after what she did to save me?"

Cyborg paused, caught inbetween a lie to make Robin feel better and the truth. He slowly opened his mouth, having picked the harsh, cold truth, and rested a hand against Robin's shoulder. "I doubt it, man. She's tough, but..."

"But what?"

"But no one's that tough. She gave up everything she had just to save you, and her body shut itself down as a result of that. She's all right, but her powers and mind have probably been greatly affected."

That was when they heard her voice for the first time. "What's going on?" It called, and Robin raced to the doorway to see the grey-skinned gothic running one hand through her matted violet hair and trying vainly to pull her long legs from under her white sheets and reach a glass of water Cyborg had left there. Robin's green-gloved hand brushed hers as he handed it to her.

"Sit back," he told her. "You've been out for two days, and we're not sure how much damage you did to yourself when you came to save me." The words sounded hollow and selfish, and he sighed inwardly, wondering how he could ever forgive himself for putting her in that kind of situation. He looked over his shoulder for support, but the others had gone.

"It was worth it," she whispered, and Robin felt himself smile. "I only want you to be happy. You know that, don't you?" The pair of them paused there, Robin at the edge of her bed, Raven laying relucently back on her pillow, Robin sitting there in slight shock.

"Raven..."

"Robin, emergency. We're under attack!" Beast Boy skidding to a rather clumsy stop in front of the door. "The whole Tower is under attack!" His eyes showed this was not one of his jokes, and Robin nodded his head. "Come on, we need you!"

"Raven, you stay here!" Instently, the mood of the room changed, Robin the comanding leader, Raven a sick commrad rather than the girl he had been so close to professing feelings for. Cursing Slade with everything he had, Robin sadly moved out of the room, glancing back at Raven. "I'll be back!"

Raven sighed. _So close... And they may not make it... But what can I do? _She thought back over her life: Various times, helpless and opressed, first by teachings, then by her inablity to control her emotions, then by her father's rule, then by fear... Was she going to let herself be oppressed by this too, this helpless feeling and the situation her love for Robin had gotten her into?

_I'm coming, _she thought, struggling with the catch on her cloak and levitating because her legs refused to hold her up. _I'm not going to be held back by anything anymore._

She arrived to a terrifying scene- It seemed that the last battle she had seen had only increased Past, Present, and Future's desires to win. They were tossing the Titans they had faced for rematches about, moving with a speed unheard of and unmatched.

"You're not going to win this!" Robin was bellowing at Slade. "We'll defeat you on our own turf this time!"

Instead of answering, Slade did a graceful series of backflips, once, twice, three times... And landed next to Raven. Grabbing her around the throat, he stood there and smirked. "If I'm not going to win, surely you won't mind if you lose something in the process...?"

"You sick bastard! I won't let you hurt her! I WON'T..."

"Then I suppose I'll release the pitiful girl from all her pain." Everything in the room came to a halt as Slade stood, smiling, and reached slowly behind himself for the knife he believed would do the job of finishing the struggling girl.

_Raventhedarkgoddess: Yes, short, just long enough to leave a new cliffy... I'm mean like that. Enjoy, and read and review. I should have a next chapter in a couple weeks. or less. I heart reviewers, so thanks to those who have kept this story going._


	11. Save Me

_Raventhedarkgoddess:_ _Um, yeah... I think I left a cliffie on this story, sorry I left it for so long, the next chapter's been written forever... I'm just a lazy person with no time to sit and type, so I'm doing it at 7 in the morning... Yeah, sorry I make no sense. Enjoy the update, people, and I should have more time in two weeks... Like, when band is over!_

**Chapter Eleven: Save Me**

Raven tried to kick out, but Slade simply moved back, moving away from her. Infuriated at being handled like some toy, some pawn in the game, she reached into her mind and attempted to grasp her powers. As she did so, however, she found herself feeling weak and tired, and she withdrew, trying her best n. _Why do I have to be so weak?_

"Let her go! This isn't even ABOUT her!" Robin yelled, moving slightly toward Slade with hsi fist raised. His clear line of thinking was gone- He had been so close to telling her, and the thought that he might never have another chance was too much. "If you want to kill her, you're going to have to kill me."

"I'm going to kill you too. Don't be so eager for your turn." Slade pressed the blade into Raven's throat. "There's plenty of time for all of you to die, you know."

"I won't let you!" Robin moved forward, only withdrawing the momentum of his punch for fear of hitting Raven, who's eyes were wide and blank, the fear concealed under their surface.

"What're you going to do about it? Your teammates are already being destroyed- Past, Present and Future won't be taken by storm twice- and yet you just stand here fighting with me, not even able to touch me." He paused to allow the words a chance to enrage Robin, and he could see the intended effect working in Robin's tightened posture.

"Shut up," he said quietly. "Just shut up, Slade."

"I'm afraid now," Slade commented lightly, and pressed the knife harder to Raven's throat who, despite her best resoultion not to show anything that might worry or distract Robin, let out a gasp as a few free-flowing beads of blood hit first the knife, then ran down her throat toward her cloak, a delicate sense of blue on red.

"Let. Her. Go"

"And if I don't?" Slade pressed the blade harder, sending Raven to her knees in his grip, the other hand around the back of her throat- She couldn't draw any breath to her already tense body, and swayed slightly on the spot.

"Then I'll kill you."

"You wouldn't kill anyone, Robin." Slade took a step forward, dropping Raven to the ground where she lay, battered and slightly crumpled, and moved toward Robin. "You see yourself in anger as a hero, but you are nothing more than a young boy too ruled by his emotions toever be any form of leader."

Robin let go now that Raven was gone from his point of view, punching Slade so squarly in the face that he let out a slight cry and staggered back two paces with the force. He was back on his feet quickly, and soon their activity added to the whirlwind of fighting in their partually-destroyed room.

Raven forced herself up on her elbow and watched them- Back and forth, exchanging blows. She caressed the wound on her neck with her fingertips for a second, then forced herself into a crouching position. Using a table that had been knocked over and slightly splintered by either a starbolt or a blast from the sonic cannon, she pulled herself up to standing postion.

Robin looked over his shoulder slightly, just in time to see her rise and come up behind Slade. "Master Slade, watch out!" Called Future, before she was thrown back against a wall by Cyborg.

It was too late. Slade fell to both his knees, looking shocked, as a large black bird attacked him. Raven's body slumped in lifelessness back to the floor, but the attacks continued for several minutes.

"Retreat!" Future suddenly called.

"Why?" Present asked.

"If he's defeated, we're free," Past pointed out. "He'll be defeated and..."

And so, stopping their assults on the now-worn Beast Boy, Starfire, and Cyborg and leaving them to stare in bewilderment at their retreating forms. The bird vanished and Robin stood in shock for a second, watching Slade try and fail to stand.

"Why don't you kill me, Robin?"

"Just get out of here," Robin growled through his teeth. "Go and leave us alone." His eyes were still on Raven, on her lifeless form, and he couldn't believe she would have done anything so stupid, cursed her for doing anything so stupid. _Raven... Why would you...?_

"I knew you wouldn't..." Cyborg shut him up with a hard rap to the head, standing behind Robin, next to Starfire and Beast Boy, who crouched around Raven's motionless form.

Slade stood, although very weakly, and made his way to the door. "You do realize there is no end to this, Robin. The girl may or may not live, but I expect to see you again... And to defeat you." And with that, he was gone.

Robin dropped down next to Raven. "You idiot... Why would you sacrifice yourself for me..." He held onto her, and everyone else watched in silence.

"Please wake up... I need you to save me..." He buried his face into her lilac hair and sobbed soundlessly, his teammates leaving him to begin the cleaning of their broken home.

_Raventhedarkgoddess: Please review, I'll update soon._


	12. Shattered Dream

_Raventhedarkgoddess: I live! Or at least I'm able to update again. Please try not to be too hard on this chapter- I have some serious writer's block here!_

**Chapter Twelve: Shattered Dream**

Raven's breath was shallow, her chest hardly moving up and down, breaths entering and leaving her chests in quick, gasping breaths that hardly did her justice in their randomness. His fingers rested against the vein in the side of her neck, which was beating out of time. "Cyborg, can anything be done?"

Cyborg sighed and moved Robin aside, forcing Robin's arms away from their posistion around her waist in order to lean over her, dodging a few shards of a window where he knelt in order to check the same things Robin had checked.

"Her pulse is low and her breath is shallow, but it looks like she just completely tired herself out." He picked her up and, with a little help from their nearby teammates, got their couch uprighted. Gently, slowly, he lay Raven down on the couch and sighed. "I think she just up too much of a fight."

"What are you saying?" Robin asked, rather dumbfounded as he sat down next to Raven, near her on the floor, stroking her hair almost subconciously in a gesture that Cyborg caught with his eyes but ignored.

"I'm saying she felt like she had to protect you, man."

_But why would she...?_ "Raven..."

"She was just doing what she had to do. Don't blame yourself." Cyborg mistook the love in the word for an empty form of grief and set his hand on his shoulder.

"I know, but she..."

"Friend Robin, you must not mourn for friend Raven just yet," Starfire said lightly.

"You guys just don't get it, do you?" He asked. "You just don't understand what I'm feeling at all, do you?" _You don't understand how badly it hurts to know I didn't let her know until... I never really let her know how I feel about her._

"Then why don't you tell us?" Beast Boy asked him, picking up some of the shards from around the couch, glass shards that didn't cut his hands nearly as deep as Robin's words were cutting them all, his angry outburst for no reason.

"I loved her, dammit! She sacrificed herself for me and I wasn't there, I failed to protect her..." And then he caught sight of his face in the shattered glass.

And Slade's promise came back to haunt him. **_"The girl may or not live, but I will defeat you."_**

"I'm not going to let you," he hissed from between his teeth. "I'm not going to let you be taken away." Even as he spoke to Raven, however, his eyes strayed to the floor.

And there he saw the shards of another dream in the shattered glass Beast Boy had failed to clean up. _The Past comes back to bite me again..._

_Raven, it will NOT end this way._

* * *

_Raventhedarkgoddess: I'm sorry this is so short, please R+R! I'll get back to this again soon, like, in one or two weeks. Expect a wrap-up in the next two chapters!_


	13. Feather

**Raventhedarkgoddess: Impatient much? If I get one more e-mail telling me to update, I'm going to flip out… Still, those of you who have been loyal to me from square one have been waiting a very long time, and I'd feel bad refusing to update.**

**So I will.**

**Chapter Thirteen: Feather**

She awoke slowly, the room swimming at first as she came to it. Her mind had been forced to see the scene over and over. She was protecting Robin, the way she had been so inclined to do, and even as the pain and her breath came heavily she would not let go of the idea that she could free him, could save him from Slade.

That was when she first became aware of the face close to hers. She looked slightly to her left- A green-gloved hand rested against her shoulder, and her head felt like it was resting on a comfortable pillow.

Until she looked up into the masked face of the boy she had been saving in her disillusioned dream. "Robin?" She asked, reaching over to touch his fingers and finding their hands brushing, feeling his fingers clasp around hers.

"Raven." He said her name slowly, like a fact he wasn't sure he would ever get time to mention again. "How do you feel?"

"Weak," she answered with a small smile. "Sick." She looked around their home. "But what happened to Slade? To the tower?"

"He got away." Robin's fist clenched and his fingers squeezed her a little bit harder. Raven tried not to sigh, although it didn't work so well and her breath escaped softly before she clamped her mouth shut again and looked back up at Robin, who quickly slackened his grip.

"At least you're okay," she said finally. She looked to both sides; All the other Titans had long-abandoned their cleanup efforts and gone in search of rest in their respective rooms. "I... I don't know what came over me in that battle..."

Unwittingly and unbiddenly, Robin reached up and stroked her hair. "Well, you're all right now. We're going to stop Slade if it kills us."

"Don't talk like that," Raven said suddenly, moving her head out of his reach and snatching her hand back, letting it rest limply at her side. "Don't talk about letting anything kill us. We have a future ahead of us, and..." She recoiled at her own use of the word 'future,' said so lightly, so happily, as if she actually believed in that.

"And what?"

Raven didn't respond. Instead, she quickly looked away from him. "Do you think we're ever going to completely get over our pasts?" She asked him suddenly.

Robin was stunned into silence for a moment. "Maybe." Another pause. "If we want to work together."

More silence. It drove Robin mad- And so he was shocked to hear his own voice bridge it. "Do you remember, Raven, our conversation earlier?"

"What about it?"

"I still have something very important to tell you."

Amysist eyes locked on his masked face. "Go ahead."

"I love you. I wanted to tell you earlier... I can understand if you don't feel the same..."

* * *

_Damn you, Slade! _Robin thought. Raven's arms were locked around his waist from her position behind himon the R-cycle, their moment broken by a call from the city's police force. She had told him she loved him too, but nothing else had a chance to happen. _Damn you, why can't you stop ruining my life?_

Her hair flew out behind them and Robin could almost feel her uncertainty at being behind him. He had asked her to stay back but she wouldn't. "I need to be there to support you," she had said.

Head unclear and legs worse for wear, he lept from the R-cycle at Slade. His attitude, his cockiness, everything that marked him as an admirable leader, was gone. Instead, he was attacking, punching Slade with accutiness.

Cyborg caught Raven around the waist and helped her off the R-cycle. "He's going to kill him... In all the stains of his past, he's going to kill again..."

"Again?" Raven asked him.

"Robin's past... Was never the greatest," Cyborg said quietly. "If he loses it here... He's never going to forgive himself."

"Then why don't you try to stop him?"

"Do you know what it takes to reach a person haunted by demons?" Cyborg asked. "Do you know what it's like to try to deflect him from ideas about saving you from death? He feels like he has to protect you, even if it means taking a life!"

"I know what that feels like." _I've already been there for him. _She looked over at Robin, then back at Cyborg, and began to take slow, unsteady steps.

Robin and Slade were dancing around and around, Slade moving quickly, sometimes only dodging by a lucky shot, taking more hits than he was avoiding. "Robin.. The girl is alive, yet your fire is so strong... Do you really intend to kill me?"

"Why would I let you live!"

"Because the girl is right there. Can you imagine if my blood were on your hands, if death came by your hands... Again?"

Robin seemed to falter for only a second. "You... You...!" He kicked out. "Stop trying to take the people I love from me!" Slade fell to the ground under the weight of another punch. "Just stop it right now!"

"Are you going to kill me, Robin?" Slade asked mockingly. Robin raised a fist in answer, the other four looking on silently, when suddenly...

He felt a hand latch around his own. "Robin, we have to fight for the future! I love you! Please, please don't slip back into your past... Robin..." The hand on his was weak, yet he turned to find himself looking back at Raven, Slade still laying on the ground, Robin's foot crushing his windpipe.

"I'm doing this for you."

"I don't want you to live this way, Robin!" The emotion clouded her voice and her hands reached out, reaching up and slowly...

Robin's mask fell to the ground between them. She stared at him, into his electric blue eyes. Cyborg was the first to recover from his shock and ran forward to cover Slade, quickly followed by Beast Boy and Starfire. Robin felt himself gently falling against Raven.

"Are you listening to me, Robin? I want you to forget the past. I love you... I love you. Please..." Her hands stroked his hair quietly.

"Take him... back to jail?" Beast Boy asked slowly.

"Yes," Robin said suddenly. "Get rid of him. Let them try him."

As the other three Titans gathered Slade up in their arms and moved away with him, preparing to take them off to jail, Robin looked around the world for the first time in several long years. "Raven..." Pause. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me." She moved her face closer to his. "I couldn't let you make the same mistakes you once did."

He put his lips on hers and kissed her. There were no words to describe her rush of emotions- Instead her weak body produced no burst of power, only sheer joy, and she kissed him back before falling against him, leaning on his chest under those powerful blue eyes and letting him stroke her hair.

"Do you think the Past will ever really go away?" Robin asked Raven softly.

Rather than answering, she moved away from him to stand at the edge of the alley where the fight had taken place and stood, watching the sky until something small and black fell from it.

A feather.

She began to walk toward him, t"Small events are like the touch of a feather... They can take away or add pain to our lives." She held it in-between her index finger and her thumb, twirling it. "As surely as I can touch this to my face," she demonstrated, "Or let it go, we can overcome this."

Robin took the feather from her and held it, then bringing the same arm holding the feather over around the small of her back. "Love is kind of like a feather's touch, then."

Instead of answering, she cuddled closer to him. Neither spoke for several seconds, and the first ray of morning sun struck their forms, casting long shadows on the ground around them.

The two shadows appeared to get lost in each other, forming one shadow and slowly bringing their lips together.

They stayed like that for several seconds. It wasn't just any kiss, though.

It was the touch of a feather.

_A feather that would erase their pasts._

**END**

**Finished: Dec. 3rd, 2005  
Thank you to all my reviewers. I love each review and hope that I've at least made a fan out of someone out there.  
Respect and best wishes.  
-Raventhedarkgoddess**


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